D.C. Current

Asia Requires Obama's Immediate Attention

The U.S. needs "dollar diplomacy" and a focus on its "pivot" to Asia, say policy experts.

The big foreign-policy story of the minute is in Ukraine. There's an equally large, unheralded foreign-policy story on the other side of the globe, in the Asia-Pacific region. President Barack Obama in November 2011 announced that the U.S. would extend its economic and military interests there through free-trade deals and new military bases -- his so-called "pivot to Asia." It looked like a rebirth of what historians call "dollar diplomacy." The U.S. would establish stronger trade ties with countries like...